I can’t help that this word—
                         with its bracing long ā—  
never fails to evoke
the manifestly Shakespearean
monosyllable delivered by Jean Luc Picard:

“Space:…” — —         Cake…

See what I mean?  

Could that have anything to do, I wonder,
with the way, every time I replace the word
for “Cake (with a big-C)” with the word, cake,
you’re now scrunching up your face as if you
mistakenly sucked on a lemon?

I hope it hasn’t seemed to you, anyway,
like I wasn’t taking your cake seriously,
when the truth is—
                          & I need you to know it—
‍I’ve never taken anything more seriously
than the fact that you have cake:

          —that you’re already sick & might yet

have a great deal more suffering to go, before,
regardless, you ultimately leave me—
                        & what, if any, sliver of me
that could be left when you’re gone would be
enough to keep on?  

           —that I’m devastated unspeakably;

           —because all I am and all I will  
ever be and cherish being is Our WE—
                      this sacred Infinite WE are—
that’s now leading us into the unknown reaches  

of Cake…      

‍